Supporting Experiences of the Workplace That Work For Everyone

A member of the Careers Network reflects on experiences of the workplace after attending The Careers Network latest webinar – Alternatives to Traditional Work Experience which was delivered by Leilah Sheridan and Dan Jacklin

When I was at school, I completed a week’s work experience in Year 10. I remember not having a clue about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, just a feeling of utter panic at having to find somewhere to go for 5 days. I was fortunate enough that my Mum stepped in to help, made a few calls and I ended up going to a photography studio owned by an old friend of my Grandad’s.

During the webinar, I found myself thinking back, where would I have gone if I hadn’t been lucky enough to benefit from this support, what would I have done and how would I have felt trying to find the placement all by myself?

A recurring theme for me throughout the webinar was this idea of support. Support for the learner, support for the Careers Leader, support for the employer. Delivering Gatsby Benchmark 6 is hard, there are lots of moving parts and, for experiences of the workplace to be successful, there has to be adequate support for all those involved.

Support for the Careers Leader

For me, this starts at the top, it starts with SLT. Senior Leaders must see the value in experiences of the workplace and actively support staff to achieve Gatsby Benchmark 6 (GBM 6), giving time and resources to procure placements, manage placements and also maintain a pipeline of employers happy to have learners on placement year after year.

I agreed with Leilah completely when she spoke about having a Work Placement Co-ordinator or equivalent, someone who’s job is to manage successful experiences of workplaces within their institution, as a game-changer – absolutely!

Managing work placements is a full-time job in itself, but it’s all too often tagged onto the role of Careers Leader. With limited time and capacity, this can be very overwhelming, and it’s hard to know where to start. Leilah and Dan shared some excellent ways they deliver experiences of the workplace that align with current practice in their institution, and they explained creative ways of interpreting GBM 6 to meet learners individual needs.

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• Think about other initiatives in your setting that experiences of the workplace can support i.e Skills Builder (if you implement this in your setting) or aligning experiences with your PSHE curriculum i.e. can an experience be based around healthy lifestyles etc
• Talk to your teachers, are they doing something already that could lend itself to an experience of the workplace
• Don’t underestimate the impact that internal events/activities can have. Just because they are delivered internally doesn’t mean it’s an easy option. This will take just as much time for planning and preparation as an external placement, and can have just as much of an impact on learners too
• Enabling an alternative approach to experiences of the workplace will encourage creativity. Dan’s Employer Challenge Days is a perfect example of this - if learners can’t go to employers, get the employer to come to them and engage with a real-world challenge that a local employer may face
• Adopting an alternative approach to experiences of the workplace, where placements are completed over a period of time, can ensure that the experience is not just a one-off, over and done with within a week and then forgotten about. This approach can enable learners to fully embed new skills, it also allows time for learners to process the experience and appreciate what they’ve learnt
• Start small, when trying a new approach to experiences of the workplace, maybe pilot an activity with a smaller year group or selected group of learners, reflect on the experience, what can be improved and developed, before rolling out on a larger scale.

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Support for the Learner

As mentioned earlier, I was extremely lucky to have the support of my Mum when it came to securing a work placement. This also extended into preparing for the placement i.e. helping me figure out what ‘business/casual’ actually means, and also talking about my day when I got home.

Some learners won’t have this support, so it’s important to try and plan it into the whole placement experience. This includes pre-placement conversations around workplace expectations i.e what to wear, how to behave etc and also post-placement conversations, providing the learner with feedback from the employer so that they understand their strengths and development areas, but also capturing feedback from the learner themselves. This will help them to articulate how they feel the placement went, but it may also help you to evaluate your approach to experiences of the workplace and if it’s meeting the needs of your learners.

It was great to hear Leilah's approach to experiences of the workplace from within a SEND setting, as it’s far too common for learners with SEND to be bottom of the pile for work experience. Out-dated and unfair stereotypes still surround learners with SEND, so it’s reassuring to see practitioners like Leilah are educating employers to debunk these myths, focusing on the value that SEND young people can bring to an organisation.

Support for the Employer

To successfully deliver meaningful and sustainable experiences of the workplace, it’s important to remember that the placements must also meet the needs of the employer too. If this is considered as part of the planning process, it will lead to better outcomes for learners and increased likelihood of the employer wanting to host placements in the future.

Dan touched on some of the challenges around supporting employers, in particular health and safety and managing expectations. It’s important to recognise that employers are also accountable for how well experiences of their workplace are delivered, so ensuring there is clear and timely communication, and that employers know exactly what’s expected of them, are key considerations for implementing success.

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• When approaching employers, be mindful that they might be overwhelmed with requests for placements; apprenticeships, T-Level industry placements, experiences of the workplace for a number of different schools etc. Consider how your offer might be the most attractive to them
• Standardise an approach to recording contact with employers – they don’t want 5 different people from the same institution asking them the same thing!
• Many organisations have strategic priorities around corporate social responsibility, could hosting placements help them to fulfil this
• Focus on what would be in it for the employer if they hosted a placement, this could be developing skills of young people, supporting their local community, future-proofing their industry or building a pipeline of potential employees ?
• Set clear expectation from the beginning, consider having an Employer Charter or a Placement Agreement that sets out key responsibilities for the employer e.g. providing written feedback for each learner, completing placement diaries etc
• Make the Health and Safety aspect of placements as easy for the employer as possible. Always make sure that the employer can share their ELI documentation with you as a minimum
• Approach the relevant contact in your Careers Hub/Local Authority for support with employer engagement, this might be an Employer Engagement Officer or Skills Lead for example. Checking their website for information might be a good place to start.

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After attending the webinar, it was great to see that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to work experience is being challenged. It was clear to see the benefit that alternative approach to placements can have on the delivery of careers within a range of settings, inevitably leading to more positive outcomes for young people.